19 Assyrians that were captured from the village of Tel Goran have been released by ISIS and have arrived safely at St. Mary’s Church in Hasaka, Syria. Negotiations for their release had been ongoing for three days and were mediated by local Arab tribal leaders.

The Coptic Orthodox Church has announced that the 21 Egyptian Christians murdered by the Islamic State in Libya will be commemorated in its Church calendar as martyrs and saints.

Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II said that the names of the 21 martyrs beheaded by ISIS on February 14 will be inserted into the Coptic Synaxarium, the Oriental Church’s official list of Martyrs, a procedure similar to canonization in the Latin Church.

In the beginning of this year the Institue for Theological Research of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology and the Faculty of Security published in English a book whose author is Bishop Jovan (Culibrk) of Pakrac-Slavonia - Historiography of the Holocaust in Yugoslavia. The same book already appeared in Serbian translation by the same publisher in 2011.

It is the text of master’s thesis which Bishop Jovan defended at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem before, today late, Professor David Bankier, to whom this book is dedicated. Professor Bankier was at the same time the head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research – Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, and the present book used all the capacities that Yad Vashem offers to a research-worker, especially the one who, like Bishop Jovan, spent many years working in it.

Reviewers of this book are Simon Epstein from the University of Jerusalem and Milan Koljanin from Belgrade`s Institute for Modern History, the leading world expert for Holocaust. The Book Historiography of the Holocaust in Yugoslavia as a source book has already been used by a great number of the most serious experts for Holocaust, including Michael Feier, Raphael Izraeli, Paul O`Shea and others.

The Synod of the Holy Apostolic Catholic Assyrian Church of the East has sent a letter to John Kerry, the United States Secretary of State, regarding the ISIS attacks on Assyrian villages and the capture of 150 Assyrians (AINA 2015-02-23).

Here is the text of the letter:

Dear Secretary Kerry:The atrocities very recently committed against the Assyrian Christians of the Khabur region in northeast Syria prompt us to write to your good offices in order to bring to your attention the urgency of the present situation. As the diocesan bishops of the Assyrian Church of the East in the United States, we would like to bring to the attention of the Obama Administration the sufferings and plight of our Assyrian Christians, which we have all witnessed taking place in broad daylight, early Monday morning. In our very own day, another holocaust is taking place in history, but this time against the Christian population of Syria by ISIL.